


Take Two

by funkyfrittata



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-18 11:17:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14211978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/funkyfrittata/pseuds/funkyfrittata
Summary: It’s been two years since the death of Chat Noir, and Paris is still recovering from the loss of one of its greatest heroes. In the chaos Ladybug has also vanished, leaving the city at risk should any new threats become apparent.Meanwhile, Luka Couffaine, desperate for money, takes a job at Agreste Fashions as a personal assistant and gets a lot more than he bargained for:1. A boss with a temper that rivals Gordon Ramsay’s,2. A ring of a dead boy, and3. A girl with more emotional baggage than Gucci.With the looming possibility of a new HawkMoth and a whole lot of dangerous new friends, will Luka be able to keep his head above water?Or will he too become another tragic hero?





	1. Prologue

The grief in the air was almost palpable, Alya thought to herself.   
It hung over her like a cloud of an impending storm that was never coming, dampening the colours of the park and the hundreds of people in raincoats.

On a normal day, she would’ve been fascinated with all the shades and hues spread out in front of her. The colours blended and contrasted against varying heights, weights and general physiques in a way that felt almost hypnotising in the light patter of rain; making an almost perfect photograph. On a normal day Alya _would’ve_ taken a photo, of course, and put it on the Ladyblog for her viewers to appreciate. _City of Differences_ , she would’ve called it. _All Bound Together as One._

But the truth was...today wasn’t a normal day. Yes, Alya had taken a photo, but it had been for all the wrong reasons. Because instead of the beauty that should be apparent, she saw nothing but death bringing all these people together.   
Nothing but death.

The mayor had been rambling on for about half an hour now, and Alya had given up trying to take notes. Mr Bourgeois had moved on to the legacy of Chat Noir for the third time in those thirty minutes, and if the crowd hadn’t been weighed down with loss they probably would’ve been moaning about it too.   
“-once again, I must apologise for the absence of our remaining superhero,” the mayor was babbling. “Ladybug couldn’t make it to the memorial today for...personal reasons.”  
 _Personal reasons my ass_ , Alya thought. _Ladybug probably realised she couldn’t get through this bullshit with her usual steely calm._

And there was some truth to her opinion. This event -this whole memorial - was crap, and the public was eating it up like one of the Dupain-Cheng’s croissants. People were crying and throwing their heads back to sob (and yes, the mayor was woefully one of them) and Alya couldn’t help but think how ridiculous it was. These people had never met Chat Noir; had never gotten to know him as an actual human being. There was probably a family out there who were mourning the person underneath Chat Noir’s mask, and those were the people she truly pitied. This audience here today? They weren’t gathered here for a single dead citizen. They were here to grieve the safety they’d once taken for granted. 

And in a way, that infuriated her. Maybe it was the sense of wrongness that was influencing her, but she felt as if this entire thing was a farce. A person dies and a statue is erected for them and people continue complaining about the danger hanging over the city without doing anything to change it: that was the logic she was seeing right now. This was not something Chat Noir would have wanted, and something she hoped Ladybug would hold off going forwards.

It had been forty five minutes now. People were starting to file away from the scene out of pure boredom, but Alya remained. She needed a good shot of the statue for her blog; one final tribute to Chat Noir before people would start moving on and forgetting.   
To give the city credit, they did their best with the memorial statue - it was tall, imposing and artfully shaped out of silver. Cat Noir’s masked face - complete with his characteristic kitty ears - was staring down at the ground, expression hidden by his flow of hair. In big, bold letters under his head read the words _Paris will never forget_. Those words were the only thing Alya liked about the whole entire event. She supposed the reality of them woke her up a bit out of the daze that had been with her ever since she saw the accident.   
These five words reminded her that Chait Noir was dead, and he was never coming back.

After almost an hour standing out in the dripping wet rain, the Mayor drew to a relieved halt and let the remaining half of the original crowd scuttle out of the park. Alya watched them go with hooded eyes, hidden beneath her yellow raincoat. She could take her photo now, but in truth she didn’t want to. Not just yet. She’d put it off until the moment felt right and stand in the rain until her clothes underneath the coat were soaked through. It wasn’t as if she minded terribly - her internship at _The Parisian_ had ended and she was patiently waiting for a call she’d probably receive from them tomorrow. Until then, however, she had as much time as she needed to wait out the rain for the perfect shot. And if Chat Noir didn’t deserve the perfect shot then he didn’t deserve a thing.

Alya was lifting up her camera for one final photo when she saw her: A single lady coming out of the trees, wearing only a flimsy hooded jacket and some jeans to keep out the bitter cold.

The woman was cradling herself, trying to keep out the chill that Alya imagined must be overwhelming her with so little protection. Or maybe she was trying to keep herself together - the reporter couldn’t make it out through the shadows cast by the trees.   
Something about the woman made Alya pause a little in interest. How strange, to show up over three hours late for a memorial. There was no one left in the park except her and a couple of hobos near the fountain, which made it even more peculiar. No one would be here by choice in this weather (except for Alya, but that was beside the point), yet here this lady was, advancing forwards with a determination that seemed almost misplaced for such a simple activity. She was heading to the statue, yet each step she took seemed more painful than the last. Maybe it was that that made Alya move over to crouch by some bushes, or maybe it was because the lady had her hood pulled up. Either way, it seemed that this person wasn’t just a normal citizen mourning a distant superhero.

The lady finally came to a stop in front of the statue and stared at it for a long time. She could’ve been saying something but Alya wasn’t certain - her words were lost in the wind long before they reached her ears. This woman seemed uncertain in her own skin, rubbing her hands together like they were new and needed to be broken into. And then, just as Alya was about to write off the whole situation as an overreaction, the woman fell onto her knees.

While the wind howled and the rain pounded down; while thunder arched over the trees and peppered the park with thunder the woman remained, her shoulders moving up and down with inaudible sobs. She put her face into her hands and cried as lightning lit up the sky ahead, restless and unyielding. Alya watched on silently from her cover, not quite believing what she was seeing. This wasn’t a stranger to Chat Noir. Whoever this lady was, it was someone who knew of the superhero’s true identity. Maybe...maybe even someone who had cared about him deeply. Why else would someone come to a statue in a storm to mourn a lost hero?

The lady didn’t move as Alya slipped out of the trees, but kept her face firmly in her hands. She wouldn’t see the reporter coming if she decided to sneak up. In such a vulnerable position, this person could do very little to hide her identity if Alya chose to discover it. And she was tempted - very, very tempted. Everything she’d worked for in the Ladyblog was to discover her idol’s identity, and this woman was the key she had been looking for. If she could simply have a word with this person, she could find the person behind Ladybug after all.

The lady suddenly pulled something out of a pocket in her coat, making Alya hesitate halfway to her. It was small and glittered a little in the dying light. Alya squinted at it as the lady rose unsteadily to her feet and edged over to the base of the statue, cradling it in her hands. Was it a bomb? Probably not, it was too small. Or maybe...a lighter? Definitely not. Alya just wanted a cigarette and was letting her mind wander.

With a care Alya didn’t quite grasp the lady placed it down, just in the grass at the foot of the statue. This was the perfect opportunity to catch this stranger, Alya thought. It would be now or never if she wanted to see the face of someone Chat Noir loved. Now, or she would be running a pointless blog for the rest of her days.

Yet as the lady stood up, Alya didn’t move. Her feet were glued to the floor, preventing her from discovering her greatest dream and possibly darkest regret. Only her eyes could follow the stranger as she walked away in the same mysterious manner she had arrived. Later on that night, Alya would decide that she’d made the right call. If she thought she had the right to take advantage of someone’s grief then she was just as bad as every other citizen in Paris.

What she didn’t regret, however, was tracing the lady’s steps back to the thick grass growing in front of the statue. It only took Alya a little while to find the lump of solid things in the whispy greenery. What those things turned out to be took he a little longer to process:  
A ring, pitch black and perfectly round in her hand.  
A bracelet, made up of mismatched beads leaking with color.  
And finally a single note, flapping softly in the wind:

  
_Goodbye Kitty._


	2. Part 1

“Oh dear God, do you dress like that every day?”

 

Luka frowned as the lady’s eyes raked his clothing, distaste darkening her gaze. He glanced down at his shirt, wondering if there was a stain on it, or a hole he had forgotten was present. Surely that could be the only thing offending her so much? 

“Is there a problem?” He asked cautiously, feeling his palms go slick with sweat. He dared to look up into the lady’s cold blue eyes and instantly regretted that decision as her look was the equivalent of getting frostbite. “I mean, I understand that some people aren’t fans of Black Sabbath, but I wanted a memento of their concert when they played in Bordeaux, and this shirt seemed nice-“

“Funny,” the lady said distantly, “I don’t remember asking for your life story. I just wanted to know what motivated you to pull _that_  out of your closet.”

“It doesn’t go with the pants?” He asked quietly, and that seemed answer enough for her.

She jotted something down on a little notepad in front of her, and Luka felt his anxiety spike to new heights. He needed this job. He needed this job _so much_ , and if he’d unintentionally fucked it up by wearing the wrong shirt he was going to scream. Or throw his guitar off the side of the house barge.

Or maybe both.

 

“So tell me,” the lady finally said when she was done, “Why do you want a job here at Agreste Fashions? It’s abundantly clear that you know nothing of fashion, so it seems like an unusual choice.”

Luka froze in his seat, feeling his mind coming to a screeching halt at the lady’s words. He’d devised a couple of questions that could be asked beforehand, but this wasn’t one of them. He scrambled for an answer that would satisfy his (hopefully) future employer.

“I, uh, have always had a passion for _la mode_. I know it’s not apparent, but my love for fabrics runs deep. So deep, in fact, that it’s difficult for people to even see.”

The lady did not look impressed. “Uh huh. Well, if your adoration for this form of art ‘runs deep’, as you put it, then you must surely know the difference between woven and knit fabrics.” 

 

When Luka didn’t immediately answer her an amused smile found its way onto her lips. For a CEO of a company the lady was shockingly young; perhaps only a few years his senior. Her short blonde hair stayed perfectly in position no matter how she moved her head, and even when she leaned forward to write something else down it refused to budge. It was kind of like her unwillingness to cut him some slack.

Because Luka was many things, but he wasn’t stupid: he knew she was toying with him and loving every moment of it.

 

“Okay, fine,” He admitted, raking a hand through his hair. “I know nothing of fashion, alright? I’m here because the lady at the job centre thought I was desperate enough to try earn this position with you, Miss Bourgeois. Apparently you’ve been searching for an assistant for a while.”

“ _Another_ assistant,” she corrected, placing her manicured hands on her expensive mahogany desk. “I already have one, but she can’t seem to handle the smallest amount of work. I keep her on because she has a bit of an eye for fashion, so she can prevent major catastrophes from occurring in the workplace. But anything beyond that she’s useless at.” Miss Bourgeois placed her assessing gaze on Luka again. “What I’m looking for is someone who can do the heavy lifting. Someone who is willing to complete _every single task_ I give them, no matter the time, place or absurdity of it. Do you follow me?”

Luka nodded vigorously.

The lady frowned. “No, I don’t think you do. The reason why the people down at ‘Jobs R Us’ send individuals like you here is because you’re too short on cash to actually stop and think about what I’m asking for. Let’s put it this way: you are selling _your soul_ to me, Mr...”

“Couffaine.”

“Noted. So you need to understand that I expect you to give your all to this job. And to test your endurance, you’re getting minimum wage for the first two weeks. If you get the job, that is.”

“That’s great!” Luka exclaimed, making the rock hard CEO jump a little in her seat. “I mean, it’s not great,” he quickly corrected, “but it’s something. And something is more than nothing, which is what I currently have. And as for my commitment...well, I can guarantee it’s the least of your concerns. Trust me, Miss Bourgeois, my loyalty to this job will surpass your highest expectations.”

Luke leaned forward. He wanted her to see the sheer desperation in his eyes. Maybe it would really sell his case to her. 

“This job would be a man-made miracle for me,” he explained, meeting her hard gaze dead on. “The moment I finished my degree in music was the moment I realised I could do absolutely nothing with it in the real world, so this job is my last chance at making a decent income. Every other place I’ve gone to wants someone with ‘experience in the field’, but how the hell am I supposed to get experience if I can’t get a job in the first place? But working with you, Miss Bourgeois - that would really take me up a notch. And trust me, you would also get rid of your social life if it meant moving out of your overcrowded house barge. Especially one whose other occupants spend the whole night literally making the boat rock under them-“

“Thank you, Mr Couffaine,” Miss Bourgeois interrupted loudly. She wrote one last thing in her notebook before rising, Luka following suit. “I think I know everything I need to know about you, and a bit more as well.”

“Okay,” Luka said, breathing a minuscule sigh of relief. “So, is it too soon to ask if I got the job?”

The CEO raised her eyebrows. “What do you think?”

“Uh, no...?”

 

Miss Bourgeois sighed, and it wasn’t any normal release of breath. It was so painful and laborious in length that it actually hurt Luka to hear. He briefly considered retracting his earlier question, but decided against it. He’d already botched this interview so much that there was only one way to go: up.

“Fine,” Miss Bourgeois finally lamented, “I’ve made my decision. I suppose you’d like to know it?”

Luka gave a minute nod, holding his breath. 

_Please say I got it, please say I got it, please say I got it..._

 

~~~

 

“Are you sure she didn’t say no? I read somewhere that ‘no’ can sound like ‘yes, you got the job’ if you’re mentally unstable enough.”

 

Luka watched the sun through the water, and took a moment to admire the colours reflected across the Seine. Red, orange, yellow, purple and blue among hundreds of others. They all danced across the top of the river like fireflies, distorted through the ripple of the waves but still perfectly visible. This was Luka’s favourite time - the few moments before the sun completely slipped over the edge of Paris. It was now that the hues of the world were the most vivid, and now when his guitar made the clearest notes that echoed in the still air. He loved to take it out and play a few chords as the remaining light vanished- just a small tune to say goodbye to the day. 

But tonight, instead of a guitar pick, the only things in his fingers would be a glass of wine.

 

“I know what I heard, Jules,” Luka said to his sister. “Call me crazy, but it was a ‘y’ word that came out of her mouth. It’s a difficult letter to confuse with others.”

From her position on the railing next to him, Juleka grinned. “I don’t know, she could have said ‘you’re such a  _yasshole_.’”

“And you, little sister, are a _yoke._ ”

They both chuckled, their laughs bouncing across the canal. About ten other barges rested nearby, each one with their own story to tell. The one nice thing - perhaps the _only_ nice thing - about staying in a barge was that the neighbours constantly changed. Sometimes you’d see the same boat on different occasions, but other times you’d only see a barge once in a lifetime. When they were younger, Luka and Juleka used to guess which neighbours they’d be seeing again, and which ones would vanish into the folds of their memory. It was a game of dumb luck, but certainly an entertaining one.

And it was a game they hadn’t played since the incident.

 

“Mom would be so proud of you,” Juleka murmured suddenly, almost too quiet to be heard. Her dark hair rustled in the river breeze, with only the smallest trace of purple still in it - unlike his blue-tinted strands.

 

Luka figured the appropriate response would be to snort derisively. “Let’s be realistic here, Juleka. Mom would be the furthest thing from proud if she saw me right now.”

“But why?” His sister drummed her fingers across the barge railing. “You’ve commandeered Old Reliable in place of its captain-“ she gestured to the barge, “-you’ve finished your music degree in Bordeaux - and graduated with honours! - and now you’ve just scored yourself a job! How would any of that upset her, Luka?”

 

Juleka sought out his gaze with her big, hazel eyes. She was looking really good lately; and when he said good, he meant _good_. Lighter. The bags that had resided under her eyes for weeks had finally faded, and her nails were no longer bitten down to the quick. 

And whether that was thanks to a shrink or her long term girlfriend, Rose, Luka wasn’t certain.

 

“That isn’t the point,” he said quietly, making her frown. “Mom didn’t just want me to study music, Jules; she wanted me to _make_ it. And me working in an office from nine till five - that’s the furthest thing from Mom’s hopes. In fact, it feels like I’ve done everything she told me not to do.” He folded his arms on the railing and balanced there, watching the water with hooded eyes. “Mom was all about passion and love, not money and wages. She’d be so disappointed if she saw me now.”

 

“That’s bullshit and you know it.” The firmness in Juleka’s voice startled Luka. He tilted his head a bit to look back at her. “Yeah, mom wanted you to go into music, and yeah, she thought you could make it big, but it didn’t turn out that way. You scored an apprenticeship with Jagged Stone, and then that fell through. That’s not your fault! And that’s not Mom’s fault either! At the end of the day you gave it your best shot, Luka, and that’s all you could do.” 

 

“Well if it’s not my fault, then whose is it?” He asked frustratedly. “I want to blame _something_. I could blame fate, but pointing the finger at a higher power doesn’t seem morally correct.”

 

Juleka chuckled despite the seriousness of the topic. “Well you’re not wrong, big bro. Blame whoever you want - God, destiny, Allah. Just, whatever you do, don’t insult Buddha. You know how Rose gets.”

Luka smiled a little. “Yeah, I know. If the last three months have taught me anything, it’s that your girlfriend loves the meditation man. Maybe I should take notes from her on how to be more chill.” Luka closed his eyes, pinched his fingers together and _hmmmm_ ed, making Juleka laugh.

 

“Nah, Rose just wants you to think she’s that calm,” she admitted. “In reality, she is a ball of stress in terms of managing the new studio’s finances. It’s been a long time coming, and it’s gonna be a longer time still until we can pay back everything that we invested in it. So it’s just a little bit of a relief that you got this job, Luka. Just until _La Vie Capturée_ gets properly going, you know? It’s...sort of a contingency plan for now.”

 

“Yeah, you’re right.” He felt a little bad about centring the job issue around himself. Juleka had finished studying at a photography school little less than a year ago, and ever since then she’d been working on sharing her talent with the world. If it hadn’t been for the incident, _La Vie Capturée_ would’ve been a roaring business by now. Jules had a gift for photos, and getting the subject matter involved in them. As it was, however, people were only just starting to warm up to her mad skills.

 

“Sweetie, I think your scallops are burning,” reported a voice coming up the stairwell. Luka and Juleka both turned to see Rose Lavillant bouncing up from the lower level of the barge, looking as cheerful as always. She had a clump of some odd vegetable in her hand and was wielding it like a weapon. Food was her primary form of offense - unlike Jules (who was quite the chef), edible material was lethal in Rose’s hands. 

“Oh honey, I told you to call me when they were browning!” Juleka let out a groan and then raced down the stairs, only stopping on the way to give Rose a quick peck on the cheek. The tiny girl blushed, and watched after her girlfriend adoringly as she slipped out of sight. Luka would’ve thought that by now he’d be sick of their PDA, but he actually found it kind of sweet. They were sort of a power couple these days.

 

When the sound of clattering pans came from downstairs Rose turned to wink at Luka, her eyes sparkling. “I lied, the scallops are fine. I just wanted you to have a moment by yourself, Lukie - you’ve got a big day tomorrow, so you should do some mental preparing. Maybe even a bit of...dare I say...meditation?”

 

Luka shook his head with a smile. Rose was right about one thing, at least. He did need some time alone - just enough to convince himself over how important this job was. It would just be for a few months, right? He doubted Miss Bourgeois had been serious about ‘selling his soul’ to the job. He’d work for as long as it took for Juleka to get the business going and then...well, maybe he’d give music another go.

 

“Thanks, Rosie. I’ll be down in a bit,” Luka said, his voice revealing nothing.

“No problemo. See you then.”

 

And she disappeared down the stairs, leaving Luka with nothing but the darkening horizon and his thoughts as company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was just sort of an introduction to Luka, and how things in his life have changed since we first met him in ML. More on Rose and Juleka will also be further explained later on in the story. And, of course, the other, more prominent characters should be coming up in the next chapter. Hope you enjoyed it! x

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! Just to let you all know that this fanfic is set quite a few years ahead of the show; perhaps when Marinette would be 20-22. It does include a couple of major deaths/injuries, so be warned for the feels. That being said, I think the rollercoaster of angst will be worth it!


End file.
